WASHINGTON – The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has elected a new board co-chair and vice-chair and also welcomed five accomplished attorneys to its board of directors.
Dean of Drake University Law School Roscoe Jones, Jr., was elected co-chair of the board. He will serve alongside current Co-ChairMichael Swartz of Quinn Emanuel. Also, Neil Steiner, partner at Dechert, was elected as vice-chair. Both have previously served on the board’s executive committee.
The Lawyers’ Committee is grateful for many years of impactful service and leadership from Danielle Holley, president of Mount Holyoke College, who completed her term as co-chair and will remain on the board’s executive committee.
The new board members bring decades of collective experience in a variety of legal areas:
- Adam Cohen, Eversheds Sutherland (US)
- John P. Lavelle, Jr., Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
- Rachel J. Lamorte, Mayer Brown
- Kamil Shields, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
- Brian Waldman, ArentFox Schiff LLP
President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee Damon Todd Hewitt, said, “We are honored to welcome Roscoe Jones as our new co-chair and Neil Steiner as our vice-chair. They both have a distinguished record of pro bono service to the Lawyers’ Committee on important policy and litigation matters, respectively. We are also thrilled to add five outstanding attorneys to our board of directors, continuing in the proud tradition of leadership at the intersection of civil rights and the private bar. The Lawyers’ Committee has always drawn its strength from mobilizing the talent of the nation’s leading lawyers who choose to use their skills in service of justice, fairness, and equity. At a time when the promises of democracy are under grave threat, we eagerly welcome this influx of new energy and talent from the private bar.”
The biographies for the new board co-chair, vice-chair, and members are below.
Roscoe Jones, Jr.
Roscoe Jones, Jr., is dean and professor of law at the Drake University Law School. He is the 22nd dean and the first Black dean in the law school’s 160-year history. Before joining Drake Law, he taught courses on mass incarceration, civil rights policy, and administrative law at Yale, Chicago, Michigan, Georgetown, George Washington, and University of Washington Law Schools and the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to his career in academia, Dean Jones practiced law as a partner and co-chair of the Public Policy Group at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he helped clients with governmental relations and congressional investigations. He also served for a decade on Capitol Hill as chief of staff to Rep. Abigail Spanberger, legislative director to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and senior counsel to Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. He also worked as special counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. A member of the American Law Institute, American Bar Foundation, and Council on Foreign Relations, Lawdragon named him one of the top 500 lawyers in America, and the National Bar Association awarded him the Presidential Excellence Award.
Neil Steiner
Neil A. Steiner is a partner in Dechert LLP’s Securities and Complex Litigation Group where he represents private equity funds and their portfolio companies, hedge funds, investment advisers, corporations, and their senior executives in a variety of litigation and advisory matters. He has consistently been recognized for his white collar and securities practice by the Legal 500 United States. He devotes significant time to pro bono matters, with a particular emphasis on complex voting rights cases regarding voter registration, voter assistance, voter roll purges, and vote dilution. His cases have resulted in favorable rulings and settlements that have secured or expanded ballot access for millions of voters. Steiner received the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono PublicoAward in 2020 and the Second Circuit Federal Bar Council’s Thurgood Marshall Award in 2021 for his voting rights work and was named one of the 10 most innovative lawyers in North America by the Financial Times in 2015.
Adam Cohen
Adam Cohen is the executive partner of Eversheds Sutherland (US), and is a member of the Global Executive Management Team and the Global Board for Eversheds Sutherland Ltd. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. In addition to being responsible for the day-to-day management of Eversheds Sutherland (US), Cohen is closely involved with the strategic policies and operations of the firm in the U.S. and globally. As an employee benefits lawyer, he has advised companies on billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. Through his leadership role at the firm, Cohen has guided a range of substantial pro bono support to the Lawyers’ Committee and has himself provided pro bono support for the organization’s business operations.
John Lavelle, Jr.
John P. Lavelle, Jr., is a partner at Morgan Lewis. He represents clients in crisis management and complex litigation, including product liability, commercial, class action, and election law matters. Lavelle managed the Morgan Lewis team that served as co-counsel with the Lawyers’ Committee to successfully challenge Mississippi’s recent racially gerrymandered redistricting plan. Lavelle represented low-income Pennsylvania households and helped secure more than $700 million in retroactive emergency SNAP (food stamp) allotments and $1 billion per month in additional emergency SNAP benefits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also won a settlement that permitted new affordable housing for underserved communities in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
Rachel J. Lamorte
Rachel J. Lamorte is a partner at Mayer Brown with expertise in antitrust and competition. She also has experience in election law and voting rights litigation. Lamorte and her colleagues at Mayer Brown worked pro bono with the Lawyers’ Committee to represent the North Carolina NAACP to prevent a last-minute voter purge in North Carolina in 2024, among other similar matters.
Kamil Shields
Kamil Shields is a member of Sullivan & Cromwell’s Criminal Defense and Investigations Group and a partner in the firm’s Litigation Group. Her practice focuses on investigations and regulatory enforcement proceedings involving public corruption and bank and wire fraud. Shields rejoined the firm in 2019 from the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, where she served as an assistant United States attorney in the Fraud and Public Corruption section. In her capacity as an assistant United States attorney, Shields served as lead prosecutor in 13 jury trials, investigated and indicted dozens of cases, and argued motions. In 2024, she was appointed by the District Court for the District of Columbia to a merit selection panel to pick the next federal magistrate judge in Washington, D.C.
Brian Waldman
Brian Waldman is the firmwide managing partner of ArentFox Schiff. Under his leadership, the firm has provided pro bono support for the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition and hotline (866-OUR-VOTE), which the Lawyers’ Committee convenes in partnership with the private bar and several partner organizations. Waldman develops strategies for introducing new products and ensuring post-market compliance. He works with companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, food, dietary supplement, and cosmetic space. Waldman has been named many times on the list of Best Lawyers in America for his work in FDA and advertising law. In 2022, he was selected as the Best Lawyers’ “Lawyer of the Year” for advertising law.
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Note: Photos are available upon request.
About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real. The Lawyers’ Committee implements its mission and objectives by marshaling the pro bono resources of the bar for litigation, public policy, advocacy, and other forms of service by lawyers to the cause of civil rights.
